Tag Archives: "media kit"

Look through a large number of media kits and you start to notice trends that distinguish the good from the bad. You probably don’t have time to read dozens of media kits so we did the grunt work for you and came up with a comprehensive list of tips for creating an effective media kit.

1. Clear Purpose

You can’t evaluate the effectiveness of your media kit unless you understand the document’s purpose. In other words, you develop the best content when you know your audience.

For media kits, the audience is likely potential sponsors, advertisers, investors, contributors, or media publishers. They are reviewing your media kit to evaluate whether an investment or collaboration opportunity exists.

With this in mind, tailor your content to convince sponsors to sponsor, advertisers to advertise, investors to invest, contributors to contribute, and press to publish.

Include information that demonstrates you two are a good fit, meaning your product and market interests are aligned.

2. Contact Information

The goal is to convince your audience to contact you. However, you would be surprised at how many media kits forget to include contact information.

Place your contact information in an easy to find location or two, and make sure it is correct and up to date.

3. Logo

Your media kit is a branded piece of marketing collateral and displaying a custom logo is merely a minimum requirement.

The entire media kit needs a look and feel consistent with your website, packaging, and other marketing material so pay attention to details like colors and fonts.

4. Tag Line or Short Description

You probably have a tag line that succinctly describes your product or company. Add it here to further brand your media kit and give readers a quick introduction to your company or product.

5. Elevator Pitch

Include a section that describes the value of your company or product. What problem do you solve? Why are you special? Why should a customer, sponsor, advertiser, or investor pick you over a competitor?

Your readers don’t have time to read paragraphs so keep it to a few short sentences. This is a tough challenge for most and will likely take the most time. You have to cut out the fluff and get right to the heart of your value proposition.

6. Audience Size

A common criteria in determining whether to sponsor, advertise, or invest is reach: how big is your customer base, whether they be readers or paying customers.

Relevant information includes number of sales, number of visitors, number of downloads, etc.

7. Social Media Presence

Reach on social media is the criteria du jour, so include at least some statistics about your social media profiles.

Relevant information includes which social media platforms you use, how many followers you have, and the engagement of your followers (number of comments, retweets, shares, etc).

8. Audience Characteristics and Behavior

This information is important in determining whether you and the sponsor, advertiser, investor, or contributor are a good fit. They will want to know market segment information such as gender, age, geographic location, income, education, and hobbies of your customer base.

Depending on the nature of your company or product, behavior may also be relevant. For example, what is the conversion rate of readers to subscribers or browsers to buyers? This type of information demonstrates the influence you have over your readers or customers.

9. Contact and Submission Guidelines

Provide clear instructions on how the sponsor, advertiser, investor, and contributor should contact you.

It may be helpful to remind them that this is a two way evaluation of fit and opportunity. You are not obligated to promote all potential sponsors, accept money from all potential advertisers and investors, or publish content from all potential contributors.

10. Link to Download Media Kit & Other Collateral

After reading through your media kit, additional resources such as a pdf of your media kit, logo image files, images of your product, or brochures may be desired for reference.

*Some of the content is fabricated and used for example purposes only.

For entrepreneurs, small businesses, and bloggers, media kits are a must-have tool for attracting investors and advertisers.

Your media kit helps these potential investors and advertisers evaluate your business and make an informed decision on whether they will receive a positive return on investment.

The visual media kit above facilitated the sale of my wedding website by clearly demonstrating the value the buyer would receive. In fact, there was a bidding war during the sale process because multiple buyers wanted to invest in this opportunity. – Jen Benz

Here are a few tips to create your own effective media kit.

1. More Visual, Fewer Words

Your audience will be skimming this document. Make it easy to find key characteristics with images and a graphic format.

If investors and advertisers see a page of text, they are less likely to start reading and less likely to locate the key statistics.

Instead, create a visual media kit or an infographic media kit to successfully connect with investors and advertisers.

2. Include the Most Relevant Facts

When deciding what to include, keep the needs of the investor and advertiser in mind. For example, if you have a blog, advertisers want to know:

What is your site about?

How big is your audience?

How big is your social media following?

How do readers get to your website?

What are some popular keywords?

What is the average gender and age of your readers?

Where in the world are your readers located?

3. Make Your Media Kit Easy to Find.

Your media kit won’t do any good if investors and advertisers can’t find it. Common locations are within the Contact or Sponsor sections.